It's that time of the year again: community projections results time!
Gather 'round, kids, as I reveal how the community at Over The Monster was able to predict the season's of some of the Sox's players. We did eight in the preseason, including the whole lineup except David Ortiz (should have ... that would be interesting). I try to get to every player before the season starts, but that's usually unrealistic. Eight, though, is a pretty good number.
Today we start with everyone's favorite right fielder, J.D. Drew.
I asked all that wanted to participate to guess Drew's statistics for the following categories:AB:
HR:
BA:
OBP:
SLG:Special category:
Total games played in the regular season:
Here is how Drew actually performed when 2010 was all said and done:
AB: 452
HR: 24
BA: .279
OBP: .392
SLG: .522Special category:
Total games played in the regular season: 137
A pretty solid year by all accounts (better than Jason Bay? Oh, we've had that fight already. Get over it). But this is how the community predicted Drew's season would go down:
| NAME | AB | HR | BA | OBP | SLG | G |
| 0157h7 | 430 | 18 | .280 | .370 | .510 | 130 |
| Schulz | 400 | 18 | .285 | .390 | .500 | 120 |
| ya_down_with_obp | 440 | 22 | .286 | .396 | .521 | -- |
| RSNexile | 460 | 18 | .270 | .380 | .470 | 132 |
| NJBillsFan | 540 | 26 | .279 | .401 | .566 | 150 |
| BoSox415 | 450 | 23 | .280 | .395 | .500 | 140 |
| drabidea | 435 | 21 | .280 | .390 | .520 | 138 |
| badlydrawnjeff | 200 | 5 | .260 | .340 | .400 | 50 |
| E5 | 300 | 7 | .280 | .375 | .435 | 100 |
| bs.uf15bosox9bears23 | 500 | 35 | .320 | .415 | .520 | 130 |
| DANNDANN | 460 | 16 | .283 | .374 | .533 | 119 |
| DougieWentDeep | 442 | 17 | .278 | .391 | .480 | 132 |
KEY: Everything bolded and italicized represents a guess that was within 5 units of the actual answer. Anything with a background that is RED is a dead-on prediction.
This one is almost too close to call.
As you can see, both BoSox415 and drabidea guessed within five units of five of the six categories. That's impressive. NJBillsFan pulls off the only perfect prediction, correctly guessing Drew's .279 batting average. Some were close (DougieWentDeep on both BA and OBP -- one point off) while others were a little too optimistic (BS?). Everyone -- except badlydrawnjeff, who predicted an injury-plagued season -- had at least one guess that came within five points.
VICTORY AWARDED TO: BoSox415 and drabidea. Good job, gentlemen. You, my friends, are the best of the best of the best, sirs! Your reward? That YouTube video I just linked to. Congrats.